Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
Cal football coach Tosh Lupoi
College football coaches usually spend August worrying about depth charts, injuries, and whether their offensive line can successfully identify a blitz. Tosh Lupoi spent part of his first preseason as Cal’s head coach personally ripping giant tarps off stadium seats because, for once, the Golden Bears apparently need the extra room.
Cal released a social video Tuesday showing Lupoi helping remove the coverings from the south end zone at California Memorial Stadium, and those sections are now being sold for the entire season. The Associated Press reports the Sept. 5 opener against UCLA is trending toward more than 60,000 fans, which would make it Cal’s biggest home crowd in more than a decade.
Cal Finally Has A Good Reason To Remove The Tarps
Stadium tarps are one of the saddest inventions in sports.
Nobody installs them because demand has become overwhelming. They exist because thousands of empty seats look slightly less depressing on television when covered by a giant piece of branded fabric.
Cal had used them for several seasons while struggling to consistently fill Memorial Stadium. The Bears averaged fewer than 35,000 fans per home game last season, and covering sections in the south end zone helped reduce the stadium’s normal available capacity.
Now the problem has reversed.
The tarp removal opens thousands of additional seats, and Write For California reported that the student allotment for UCLA had already sold out while only limited tickets remained before the extra sections became available.
That is a pretty significant mood swing for a program coming off another forgettable season.
Lupoi apparently understood the marketing opportunity too. Rather than sending an operations employee into the stadium with a utility knife and moving on, Cal put its new head coach on camera physically helping yank the tarps away.
The Tarps are coming OFF 📣
You asked, we answered. Let’s pack California Memorial Stadium all season long!
🎟️ For a limited time this week, seats in sections LL & N are $43! Sale ends Friday at 5 pm ➡️ https://t.co/zIwd1b7dl9 pic.twitter.com/R2XryEVW5M
— Cal Athletics (@CalAthletics) August 25, 2026
Subtle.
Nothing says “please notice that people want tickets again” quite like filming your football coach personally uncovering the evidence.
The UCLA Opener Has Become A Pretty Big Deal
The excitement is about considerably more than furniture removal.
Lupoi is a former Cal player and assistant returning to Berkeley for his first head-coaching job, and the Bears have spent the offseason aggressively trying to create momentum around a new era. The official Cal schedule has UCLA visiting at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 5 for a renewed rivalry between former Pac-12 opponents.
A crowd above 60,000 would be Cal’s largest home-opener attendance since 60,606 showed up for Grambling State in 2015.
There is also a wonderfully circular detail there.
Cal removed the south-end-zone tarp for that game too because demand exceeded the reduced capacity.
Eleven years later, the giant sheet has once again become unnecessary.
Obviously, one packed UCLA game does not suddenly mean Cal has transformed into Ohio State West. Clemson and Stanford should also draw well, but the real test will be whether fans continue showing up for less glamorous games if the Bears stumble.
For now, nobody in Berkeley needs to worry about that.